Former Downtown Development Authority Community Development Coordinator Jake Albers conducted the survey because he said he wanted to see how parking is being utilized within the city and to get a picture of parking revenue.

There are approximately 1,530 public parking spaces within the DDA's three districts, which encompass the downtown area, Depot Town and West Cross Street. The three areas include the following spaces:

454 metered

86 pay-by-hour

298 free, limited

141 permit only

551 unrestricted

744 on-street

786 off-street

The past two fiscal years also included reductions in general fund expenditures related to parking.

In fiscal year 2010-11, there was a surplus of $73,453 in revenue compared to expenses and in 2011-12, there was a surplus of $89,993.25 in revenue. Currently, all revenues and expenses related to parking come from and go into the city's general fund.

Courtesy of DDA

In addition to looking at revenue for the past two years, Albers also conducted a sub-study to see how much money is generated from the city's parking meters within a two-week period. Albers included 449 meters in this study.

Over the course of six weeks, Albers, volunteers and parking enforcement collected documentation related to meter usage in the city.

The first collection took place on March 23 of this year and the second occurred March 29. During the two week collection period, the meters within the study area generated $6,947.34 in revenue, for an average of $3,473.67 per week.

Data shows that if those averages were to hold true throughout the year, the parking meters within the study area would yield an estimated $180,000 for the city. This would be an increase from the $114,100 reported in fiscal year 2011-12 for revenue related to parking meters.

The DDA collected the data to investigate opportunities to create an integrated parking system within the city.